


Of Memories and Puns and Lost Hopes

by hellgodsrus



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Dreams, Dreamsharing, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Gideon's Porn Magazines, Late submission, No Cytherea, Non-Explicit Reference to Masturbation, The People's Tomb Fic Jam: Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26688943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellgodsrus/pseuds/hellgodsrus
Summary: Gideon has some very strange dreams after the Transference trial that don't feel like her own. And that's even before getting into Harrow's role in them which is - different.Late entry for the People's Tomb Fic Jam Week 2.
Relationships: Gideon Nav/Harrowhark Nonagesimus
Comments: 6
Kudos: 133





	Of Memories and Puns and Lost Hopes

**Author's Note:**

> Ugh, so this finally arrives, nearly 48 hours late. Whoops. Blame my depression, and public transport. Thanks once again to Anna for beta-reading this, and to my beautiful fiancee (Taylor) and my beautiful girlfriend (Jess). Again, apologies for the lateness.

Gideon wasn’t entirely sure of the point that things went _wrong_ , but it was round about the point that the fun battlefield with all of the characters from her comics became one of Drearburh’s halls mid-stride. She couldn’t even be sure _when_ it had happened, but there she was. Face painted, wearing shitty robes instead of a tight-fitting Cohort uniform with some strategically placed rips to show off her arms. The light tinkle of laughter from the necromancer she’d been protecting was replaced with tiny, failing bulbs along the walls. 

At least she still had her sword though. So. Not a complete nightmare. 

The halls were empty too - more empty, anyway. No distant bell, no clatter of bones. Even the hum of the bulbs was quiet. This was made up for by the strong scent - and when had _smell_ become a part of this dream? - of salt and thick cloying honey, burrowed almost painfully in her nostrils. The stone was quiet under her boots as she walked. 

Some part of her brain, the bit that clearly still thought this was a _good_ dream, still thought it was Gideon-the-Cohort-Hero, kept telling her to call in for backup. The nasty bit of her brain that always sounded like Harrow hissed in her ear _you can’t ever get away from the Ninth, Griddle_ , nails sinking into her spine and carving little divots into her flesh that dripped as she walked. 

But the majority of her brain was _irritated_ , because it _had_ been a good dream - one of those ones where you didn’t even know it was a dream - as opposed to this haunted house bullshit. It wasn’t even doing her the courtesy of being one of her usual nightmares. 

Gideon was _not_ having this. She was going back to the other dream, right now thank you very much. She wanted to get away from Drearburh and join the Cohort for a reason, and she wasn’t going to stand for that not happening inside her own damn head on top of everything else. 

Water lapped at her boots, the salt smell built enough to sting at her eyes, until she came to one of those tunnels she had to duck through and she caught a mouthful of the water, brackish and bloody. 

When she emerged, she was in the vaulted central nave of Drearburh. The water lapped at her knees, sloshing against the stone pews in little ripples capped with white foam, hissing softly. Plant matter brushed against her ankles. 

Gideon’s brain was telling her this was Drearburh but also that it _wasn’t_. The arches and bones and skulls collapsed into a crystal dome through which brilliant, blinding light was visible - the racks of penitent knucklebones held guttering candles - sub altars and passageways branched off from the main room like roots from some hideously large vegetable. 

And kneeling before the central altar was, of course, Harrow. 

She was dressed in full Ninth regalia - even more so than when they’d arrived at Canaan House, if that were possible. Layers of black robes and black veiled lace and yellowed bone wrapped her tightly round like a pastry. Naturally she was facing away from Gideon, but she turned her head, displaying an intricately painted face - one of those ones which had a really stupid name Gideon could never remember, something like _the Zealot’s Watchful Orbit_ or _Priestess Gets Wet About Bones_ or something, the kind of one that she’d put on with painstaking precision while complaining about how Gideon did her own skull (and honestly, it’s just a fucking skull, why Harrow made such a fuss). The really startling thing though was that her boney pinched face wasn’t in one of the normal Nonagesimus faces, i.e. _fuck right off Griddle and keep fucking off, you disgusting worm_. She looked… tired. Resigned. 

“Okay, what the fuck is this?” The water was hard to move through, but Gideon struggled closer. 

Harrow said nothing, which was also worrying. Dream-Harrow was normally either in fits of rage and despair about Gideon getting away from Drearburh, sobbing into the pile of medals that she’d sent back from her many heroics, or was throwing skeletons at her and sneering. She _wasn’t_ known for kneeling around in gross water, the air briny and sweet, staring at Gideon with a kind of resigned - dread, almost. 

She was wrapped in chains. Gideon could see them as she got closer. Or - no, one single chain, like one of the ones the _really_ decrepit nuns of the Ninth had but longer, thicker, all yellow bone, and binding her to the altar and on her knees. Somehow, looking at it Gideon knew it had two-hundred links exactly, even though it was impossibly long and that made no actual sense at all. 

Gideon didn’t mind chains - she hadn’t since _Bertha: Bound in Iron_ , which had been a really interesting read - but something about seeing Harrow kneeling there, looking small and damp and pathetic, made her reach for one of the taut loops when she got up to the altar and start tugging on it. Some cavalier she’d be if she didn’t try and free her damn necromancer from being tied up, even in a dream. 

“What are you _doing_?” Harrow’s over-painted face contorted. “You can’t - ” 

Gideon had a bunch of things she could say to that but what she ended up saying was, “We agreed no more bone cocooning and I think weird bone chains kinda counts for that.” 

“Gideon - ” and _that_ was really weird, hearing Harrow say her actual _name_ , what the shit was this dream? “Griddle, you can’t - stop tugging on them - ” 

Gideon did not stop tugging on them. She braced her feet against the steps and hauled the chain up as sharply and firmly as she could, her mouth sharp with the stupid salt-smell, trying to move the stupid chains literally a single damn inch. 

Harrow made a pained, quiet sound, low in her throat. That _did_ make Gideon stop, which was around the time she noticed that the chapel was full of people. 

All the nuns of the Ninth sat in the pews in serried ranks, some so old and bent they nearly had their faces in the water. They weren’t _doing_ anything, and with the lack of sound Gideon couldn’t hear their wheezing breaths or the clack of their knucklebones, but there they were, sitting there. All staring at her and Harrow. 

Behind the altar were the Reverend Father and Mother. Also just - staring. Their eyes weren’t glassy, and their skin was less corpse-pallid than Gideon had ever seen since their deaths, but somehow they were more un-alive than ever in their silent observance. 

The only good thing about this freaky, weird dream was that Crux wasn’t there. If Gideon _ever_ had a dream involving Crux, she would throw herself onto her sword. 

“I thought it would be your turn, but this is worse,” Harrow said, utterly mystifyingly. “Just _stop_ , Gideon. I don’t deserve to be free of this.” 

“I really don’t deserve this either, but hey, no choice in the matter.” She sloshed through the water, stepping over links of chain until she was in front of Harrow then, after a moment’s pause, knelt in front of her so they were face to face. 

“You’ve never deserved any of this.” Harrow’s eyes were dark and bright. And before Gideon could come up with a proper response to _that_ oddity, Harrow was lunging forward - Gideon pulling back before a chain behind her stopped her - 

\- their lips met - 

Gideon woke up in her pile of bedding and blankets with a sudden start. 

“What,” she said to the ceiling of the room. “The actual fuck.” 

-.-.-

It wasn’t - 

Okay, so. She’d had. Dreams with Harrow in before. Where things like that had happened. Not the freaky Drearburh shit, or the chains, or any of it but the - the other thing. It wasn’t like there were that many girls who Gideon knew, and occasionally her subconscious decided that since Harrow was there and close to her age, she’d show up in _that context_. 

It still wasn’t - 

Harrowhark was a horrible bone lady who hated her, and who Gideon hated. It was _weird_ thinking about her like that. Thinking about kissing her made Gideon’s insides boil, and going any further would probably lead to having skeletons burst out of her ribcage or something like that. It wasn’t a _serious_ thought. 

Which was why still being worked up about it hours later was stupid. 

She’d taken care of the physical stuff in the sonic - which was always a bit unpleasant, the thing made her teeth feel like they were almost vibrating out of her skull when she got into it - with thoughts of Rigor Mortis Roxanne ( _guaranteed to keep you **rigid** _had been the incredibly gross tagline on the comic in question but Roxanne was _so damn hot_ that she was always good for getting Gideon going), but in the final moment she’d pictured Harrow’s sad, bony face lunging up at her again and that had put everything back in the _weird_ column. She’d barely focused through the whole looking into the key they’d gotten from the construct thing because she’d kept on being distracted by her slanted mouth and thin eyebrows poking through her facepaint, and her banter and insults had been pathetic and feeble. 

When Harrow had started in on the whole _no longer being a stranger to you_ thing, Gideon had been _very_ tempted to hurl herself out the nearest window, because it was all just _too weird_. She was all about being a proper cavalier and helping Harrow solve this Lyctor thing, but anything else would be _odd_ , and she just wanted sleep that didn’t contain Harrow’s dark eyes or Harrow’s lips or Harrow’s weird, hateful, pointy face. 

She just - 

Ugh. No. No thinking about this. Gideon was going to do her absolute best to _not think about Harrow_ for the next few hours. While trying to stop her from rushing off and doing more dangerous, weird Lyctor trials. 

-.-.-

“This,” Gideon declared to the fucking Drearburh corridors, _again_ , “has got to fucking stop.” 

It hadn’t even been a _good_ dream she’d been ripped from this time. It was blurred,and had started with skeletons, which was never a good sign, and progressed into blood and teeth and mayhem. But it had been a dream which wasn’t going to have her spending the whole day panicking about Harrow trying to kiss her, which was an improvement. Probably. 

The air didn’t stink of salt, at least. Instead there was a sort of smokey smell, sweeter than the incense used in actual, not-weird-dream Drearburh. Gideon could tell this wasn’t real because she wasn’t desperately trying not to cough, and because the fucking _water_ was still there. 

She gave it a glare. “I’m not going back to bondage fun time with the Reverend Daughter.” 

The water sat there, unhelpfully, lapping against the middle of her shins. It wasn’t even properly _damp_. But still, Gideon wasn’t going to sit down in it and wait to wake up. She’d just - stare at it. And hopefully it would go away. 

It did not go away. The smoke smell didn’t either. The tiny badly made lights decorating the walls didn’t, the stone and carved alcoves for skeletons didn’t either. Gideon shifted from foot to foot, and debated drawing her sword and fucking _whaling_ on this stupid piece of shit corridor until it let her out. She’d done that sort of thing often enough in real Drearburh, so it wouldn’t even really be too unfamiliar to her. 

“If I hit my head against a wall _really hard_ when I wake up, will you stop doing this?” 

The water was silent. 

“Fine.” 

Gideon sloshed onward. Yup, there was the fucking shitty tunnel she’d have to duck through and get a faceful of water - she ducked into it, sputtering again at the awful, bitter, bloody taste - and stepped again into the Drearburh chapel again. Still looked wrong and right. Still with deeper water. 

Harrow was there again. This time, however, there was no weird bone chain, no ornate getup. And, she wasn’t alone. 

There was another Gideon there. 

Normally, any dream with two Gideons and one other woman was a pretty fucking great dream, mainly based on scenes from _Crepuscular Clones!: Catch of the Century_. However in this circumstance, A) the other woman was _Harrowhark Nonagesimus_ , who if she _ever_ said anything like, “ _I want both of you to ravage my frail form!_ ” would cause Gideon’s head to explode, and B) the other Gideon had her sword out and was attacking Harrow. 

This was something Gideon had done herself on occasion. In reality, Harrow had skeletons. Was fighting back, face a black and white mask of cruelty as she did weird necro shit. 

Here, a smudge-faced Harrow was just getting hit, over and over again, those dark eyes wide with forlorn resignation as other-Gideon sliced into her with an expression of terrifying, cold hatred. Gideon hoped she’d never, _ever_ looked like that. Even at Harrow. 

Before she could really think about it, Gideon was drawing her own sword. Something about the sight of Harrow, pathetic and bedraggled and - anyway, she was stopping this. “Oi! Asshole!” 

Other-Gideon didn’t react, but Harrow’s head snapped over to look at her. “Gideon?!” This was enough of a distraction for Other-Gideon to land a hit that sent Harrow stumbling back into the water with a cry - and _that_ was enough for Gideon to rush forward, ignoring the way the water made her robe hamper her footwork, and stop the next blow from crashing into Harrow’s stupid, vicious skull. 

It was immediately apparent from the next blow that Other-Gideon was a really cheap knockoff. It was like watching someone who knew what sword-fights were from watching them - no, it was liking watching someone’s _idea_ of what a swordfight looked like. Gideon blocked the wide sweeping blow, switched to a halfsword grip, and bopped her stupid copy right in the face with her crossguard, kicking her feet out from under her. 

Other-Gideon, face still contorted with rage, toppled into the water where she lay, thrashing. Still trying to do sword-fighting moves like she was standing up, like a beetle on its back. 

“What the fuck.” Gideon stepped back to avoid what was probably meant to be an advancing sweep if the person doing it hadn’t been lying on their back under a meter of water. “Fights with clones are meant to be _cool_.” 

“Gideon.” 

She risked a look over her shoulder. Harrow was still lying in the water, half sat up. Damp, her robes and hair clung to her, drawing attention to how thin and tiny and horribly sharp her body was. Almost enough that Gideon could see every one of her ribs - 

“Nope! We’re not doing this again.” Gideon sloshed backwards away from the still thrashing clone and Harrow’s wet form - _damnit brain, this was_ not _the time!_

“We’re not - what are you talking about - ” 

“You being all - ” _don’t say wet, don’t say wet, **don’t say wet**_ \- “moist and alluring, with the clingy fabric and the - the saving your life - ” 

“Saving my life? _Moist?_ ” Harrowhark rose from the water like the angry evil skeleton witch that she was. Her hands - fists - were shaking. “Griddle, you - utter wretch, you simpleton dullard, you ignorant, brutish serf - ” 

And _that_ was more like Harrow and somehow that was all Gideon needed to take two steps closer, wrap a hand round the back of Harrow’s head, tangling in that dark wet mess of hair, and lift her up into a kiss. 

It wasn’t like other dreamkisses. They were kinda - unreal? Not that Gideon had much to compare them to, really. But this kiss, she had bumped her nose into Harrow’s stupid knife of a nose, their teeth had clacked together - _ouch_ \- she was having to bend over at a really uncomfortable angle to reach down to kiss Harrow - 

_Oh fuck what was she doing she was kissing Harrow?!_

But now she’d _started_ she couldn’t _stop_ \- Harrow’s stupid chapped lips, and Harrow’s bony cheek pressed against the palm of her hand, and Harrow’s sharp fingers digging into her hip hard enough it actually _hurt_. She made a tiny, desperate noise into Gideon’s lips and it travelled _straight_ down Gideon’s throat and into her stomach, and _God and all his Saints_ , this felt so fucking _right_. 

“Is this how it happens?” 

And that completely broke Harrow’s weird necrospell and Gideon snapped away from her, looking up to see a grey-faced corpse of a woman leaning against the altar of the Ninth, eyes as dark as Harrow’s. She was stupefyingly beautiful for someone who was clearly _very dead_ , so beautiful it became scary, horrifying, like the light of Dominicus scorching her retinas. Her voice was even worse, an overlapping mess of sounds - she could almost distinguish individual, familiar tones from amongst the mix - 

The woman blinked, lazy and feline. “You’re not where you’re meant to be.” 

“What does that _mean_?! What is any of this?” Gideon swapped glares from Dead Girl, to Harrow, to the still flailing clone, then back again. 

“You can _see_ her - you’re - you’re talking to her - ” Harrow’s face suddenly became studiously blank and she stepped away. There was a roaring sound like the sea around Canaan House, the ripples in the water growing taller, the foam on them growing longer, fiercer. “You’re not a dream - ” 

“Yes - I mean - wait - ” Gideon blinked. “... Harrow?” 

And then she woke up, the blankets tossed around her, to find Harrow staring down at her from the bed, half-painted face unreadable. Before Gideon could say anything, or do anything, or even _think_ much of anything, the Reverend Daughter had fled from the room. 

“Well,” said Gideon. “What the _fuck_.” 

-.-.-

They hadn’t talked about the dream. And so much else happened - the siphoning trial, the Third being creepy, and then the Pool. Harrow bare of paint, talking about a perfect girl in a tomb and hating herself and it had made so much sense, the dreams of Gideon trying to murder her, of being bound in a chain - two hundred links, it all made sense - and as Gideon leant down she thought about saying it, about tilting Harrow’s chin up into that irresistible kiss she knew she could give. 

She didn’t. She kissed Harrow’s stupid pointy nose with trembling, clumsy lips, and swore her devotion instead. And maybe that was enough for Harrow to understand. 


End file.
